[ThinkBeat]

This is highly accurate. Presently its a whole set of entirely different diagnosis make up "the spectrum".

They even eliminated "Asperger" and then just folded that into the spectrum as well.

I sometimes think about two women sitting on down on a bench. Once says a bit uneasily "my son, well he is on the spectrum" The other responds with "Oh I know what you are going through my daughter is also on the spectrum"

At this point neither has any idea whatsoever about what the others experience is like.

One may be highly functional, socially awkward and doesn't think like normal people and processes sight and sounds the same. I find myself moderately down this path.

The other may be non verbal and violent.

[cardanome]

If you have met one person with autism you have met one person with autism.

This is true for anything else and no argument against the current diagnosis.

There are people with Covid that ended up in the hospital and people with Covid who barely had any symptoms. Both have Covid.

Autism doesn't work from "little autism" to "a lot of autism". One person can have strong sensory issues but decent social skills. Another bad social skills but not sensory issues at all. And care needs can change over your life, they are not fixed.

[suddenlybananas]

The crucial difference is that we know the etiology of COVID and so are justified in treating those two people as having the same disease. Autism is much more complicated because we don't have a thing to define it other than a bunch of disparate symptoms.

It might turn out like if we treated the cold, COVID, tuberculosis and lung cancer as the same thing because they all involve coughing.

[cardanome]

We know that autism has a strong genetic link.

Furthermore we employ differential diagnostic and check whether your symptoms could be better explained by another condition. You don't just diagnose people with autism because they have a few symptoms.

Furthermore autistic people can generally relate to each other. Even if two autistic people show very different symptoms there is often a feeling of belonging together.

It is always possible that we will learn more in the future and maybe we will have other diagnosis criteria or discover some people currently diagnosed under autistism would fit better under something else.

However the current diagnostic criteria for ASD is the current state of our scientific knowledge. A lot of clinical research is baked into it.

[jjk166]

> It might turn out like if we treated the cold, COVID, tuberculosis and lung cancer as the same thing because they all involve coughing.

Well there are 200 different viruses that cause the common cold. We lump them together because they all involve coughing.

Basically all cancers are unique, even for the same type of cancer. Again, these are lumped due to shared symptoms.

Tuberculosis is caused by 9 different species of bacteria, but these are at least related species.

Covid is basically exactly the same disease as SARS, just caused by a particular strain of coronavirus, though that strain divereged into multiple ones that now produce quite different symptoms. In addition to SARS, other coronaviruses are among those 200 that cause the common cold.

Diseases are historical groupings that someone at some point thought would be useful, nothing more.

[kentiko]

> normal people

We usually use the term "neurotypical". Autistic people aren't abnormal, the are different.

[ThinkBeat]

Who is "we".

If "we" are autistic people, then I am part of "we" then "we" is in error since I don't use term "neurotypical"

Perhaps you should say "I usually use the term "neurotypical"

[dragonwriter]

"Neurotypical"/"Neurodivergent" does the same thing, it just specifies the domain of abnormality. It is still better than "normal", but the difference is of degree rather than kind.

If you are specifically distinguishing autistic and not-autistic, "allistic" is more specific than "neurotypical" (one can be neurodivergent and not autistic) and also avoids any implication than one side is normal and the other is not. (Unfortunately, there is no very good direct replacement for "neurotypical"/"neurodivergent", but one can minimize the impact of that problem by not using them when the real concern is about presence or absence of a particular trait that is within the broad array deemed "neurodivergent".)

[Y_Y]

I'm autistic and abnormal.